


Altars / Tip jars

by MarauderCracker



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: F/F, Post Daredevil S2, wounds cw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 18:54:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7450309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarauderCracker/pseuds/MarauderCracker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some nights, when she's missing Matt, she lights a candle for him and wishes that the next avenging angel sent to her door doesn't break her heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Altars / Tip jars

Claire doesn't dislike her new job, per se. It pays well enough (better than the underfunded hospital she was at did) and her new bosses are nice and affable. Claire just isn't a huge fan of private practices. 

Still, her life's been way better since she got this job offer and Claire knows better than to complain about things going her way for once. Due to her abuela's insistence she wears a strip of red fabric around her finger or wrist; keeps el mal de ojo and the spirits away. Matthew doesn't come crashing into her life and she doesn't ask herself if the incense and candles that she now keeps by the window of her new apartment are also a way of keeping him away.

Claire's always more or less believed in the way that everyone raised around santeras more or less believes, but recent events have sort of heightened her faith. If there are immortal ninjas and zombies and blind men who see a world of fire then this, her quiet belief that Vírgenes Negras and family ancestors will protect her if she keeps a couple candles on, might be stronger than she ever gave it credit for. 

Some nights, when she's missing Matt, she lights a candle for him and wishes that the next avenging angel sent to her door doesn't break her heart.

 

In the way to her new workplace there is a small coffee shop owned by an old Cambodian lady where they serve the coffee black and bitter and don't offer sugar unless you ask for it. The barista is a woman around Claire's age with an accent that sounds too much like a high class European tourist to really fit in the coffee shop, but she's beautiful and flirty and knows all of the customers' names. She moves behind the counter with ease and calculated grace and Claire can imagine her pouring drinks at a bar or dancing ballet just as easily. Her name-tag reads "Ellie". 

Ellie always drawls out a "how was your shift, Claire?" with that half-smirk of hers and doesn't bother asking for her order anymore. There is something about her --the shift of her eyes and the strong shape of her biceps, the faint scars visible in her hands-- that reminds Claire of Matt. 

"Exhausting, but luckily I've got tomorrow off. Any plans for the weekend?"

Ellie tells her she's going to sleep in and watch some movies and somehow Claire knows it's a lie, but that is none of her business. She always drops her pocket change in the tip jar, both for the excellent coffee and for the grin-and-wink Ellie throws her way as she walks out.

 

At the private practice, Claire doesn't have to yell at cops or argue with petty criminals. She stitches rich kids who fell of their skateboards, checks on people's medications and makes small talk with old ladies who tell her about their vacations across Europe. There are no backstreet vigilantes or ninjas, and Claire really is grateful for it. 

Still, when someone knocks on her kitchen window at three a.m. on a Wednesday, her heart races with something like excitement. Matt doesn't have her new address but she's not hiding either, even if maybe she should be. She throws on a pair of shorts and a hoodie, doesn't bother turning the lights on as she crosses her apartment. 

"Bedhead is a great look on you," a voice drawls from the stool by her kitchen's table. The window is already open. She knows that voice --not Matt, of course it's not Matt, posh European accent and that flirtatious tone, could it be? Claire turns on the lights to find Ellie from the coffee shop bleeding in her kitchen. 

 

Her name is Elektra (Natchios, the accent is a mixture of Greek and long years in French boarding schools) and she's got a wound in her abdomen that doesn't stop bleeding black. She's not here for it but for the bullet stuck in her upper left thigh, tells Claire not to worry about the poison slowly dripping from her stomach as she sets down her sai swords. 

"I'm so sorry to intrude, but you are the only trained medic I know in the area," she struggles to stand up and, as she moves, Claire can see fresh cuts and bruises all over her arms, "and I really don't want to die again."

While Claire goes looking for her first aid kit, trying hard not to ask what that 'again' means, Elektra lights the candles in her tiny altar, leaves a smudge of blood on one of the stamps as an offering. 


End file.
